


God will forgive me but

by sammyatstanford



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Completely Unnecessary Reference to Zelda, Fantasizing, Like so much angst, Masturbation, Pre-Series, Pre-Stanford, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:45:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyatstanford/pseuds/sammyatstanford
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thing is, the fact that his big brother gets his dick wet doesn’t even make the top ten reasons why Sam knows he needs to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God will forgive me but

_I hope that my sanity covers the cost_

_to remove the stain of my love_

_Paper mache._

 

 

It’s not like Sam does this often. He recognizes all the ways it’s just a bad idea, but sometimes, when he’s alone (yet again) and too wound up, when he can’t think his way out of his own head but just keeps digging himself deeper into the most unpleasant spaces of his own mind, sometimes it just _helps_.

He coughs lightly on the burn of cheap whiskey at the back of his throat, suppresses it with another pull straight from the bottle. Short this time, but it still steals the air out of his lungs, makes him breathe in sharp and stinging wet.

There’s three days until he leaves for Stanford and Dean’s gone.

Not _gone_ , not the way Sam’s gonna be soon, but not _here_. Not crowding Sam’s space no matter where he is in the room, breathing and rustling and being generally unable to be unnoticeable, not for Sam. You’d think, after years crammed together, sardines in a fine American steel can, bones all limp and compressed and molded together—you’d think in all that time, Sam would be fully acclimated to everything about Dean, would find none of it interesting or extraordinary at all.

But Dean, well. Dean defies a lot of the laws of man and nature, doesn’t he? Makes Sam want to defy a good handful of them as well.

Not that it matters at the moment, will matter at all soon. Dean’s been with Dad the past four days on a hunt, Sam left behind in this little hovel a state away with a stomach bug (probably the chicken salad he’d picked up at a Gas’n’Sip in the Oklahoma panhandle) that had passed as quickly as it had come on. Dean had called earlier today, said he was making his way back, but Sam knows his brother too well, knows the way the adrenaline surge of victory will itch under Dean’s skin with only one surefire way to get it out. Sam almost wishes Dean hadn’t called at all (that’s a lie), that he’d never heard that spark in Dean’s voice that he knows, _knows_ pairs with heat in Dean’s eyes. It had just left him aching hollowly with jealousy on top of the mess of loneliness and intense anxiety inside his head.

The clock in his brain has been ticktickticking down since the day he graduated, every missed opportunity to tell Dean the truth another weight, pushing him under. With all the secrets Sam keeps from his brother, it’s amazing he hasn’t been buried yet.

Sam sighs, rolls his head back and forth on the limply-stuffed arm of the couch, sloshing his brain around in a way that’s almost pleasantly nauseating. He’s pushing the edge now, between blind-stupid-vomiting drunk and not-drunk-enough-to-stop-thinking. It’s a really delicate equilibrium, so he takes another drink.

He reels his head to the side, and his eyes settle on the steady flicker of _The Simpsons_ on the TV for several long moments without really seeing it, his thoughts peacefully swaddled in a whiskey cocoon and the pulse of his heartbeat in his forehead. The emptiness of his mind is blissful, and Sam’s almost slipped into a doze when he’s jolted back to alertness by the catch of the chain and a muttered curse as someone tries to open the door.

“Sammy!” Dean calls through the two-inch gap. “Lemme in!”

_Dean’s back._

“It’s Sam,” he answers, dragging his head off of the cushion to look at his brother.

 “Yeah, got it,” Dean says insincerely. The couch is at right angles to the door, separated by a gap of several feet, so Sam’s got a perfect view of his brother rolling one eye and lifting a fist to pound twice against the wood, making the chain shudder pathetically in its hold. “Open the fuckin’ door.”

Dean shouldn’t be here, but he is. Here, and alive, and Sam can’t see so great right now but he doesn’t even look hurt. Or like he’s just banged his way through half of a seedy Oklahoma bar. Miracles happen every day.

“Yeah, got it,” Sam parrots Dean’s earlier dismissive words, but he swings his feet down to the carpet and pushes himself to stand.

The world swims sickly around him, and he finds himself back on the couch, a snort of laughter escaping before he can stop it. _Whoa_.

“Sam?” Dean asks, and Sam hears the concern in his voice, like Sam might still be ill and nauseous even though he’d already told Dean he was feeling better two days ago.

“’S fine,” Sam drawls out, hand flopping consolingly in Dean’s direction and smacking the couch cushions. “Just st—stood up too fast.” He shifts upright again, slower this time.

“Dude, are you drunk?” It’s shocked, incredulous, and Sam remembers that Dean’s never seen him drunk before when Dean wasn’t the one who got him that way. That Dean’s probably gonna have questions, really hypocritical ones given his own not-infrequent familiarity with the bottom of a bottle.

“What gave you that idea?” Sam tries.

“Next time, try without the slurring. What are you—.” He cuts off, sighs. “Whatever, just let me in, man.”

Sam makes it to his feet this time, stumbles the few steps to the door and pushes it shut so he can release the chain. Dean doesn’t wait for him to open it, and the push of the door makes him lose his balance, sets him weaving backwards until Dean manages to catch him around one arm.

“Can’t leave you alone, can I?” Dean muses, maneuvering Sam back towards the couch and settling him down onto one of the cushions. He tries to pull away, but Sam uses his newly-grown reach to catch Dean around the neck and drag him into a hug because Dean _can’t_ leave him alone, Sam doesn’t _want_ to be alone, doesn’t want to leave his brother even for a minute. Dean’s skin is sticky with old sweat and he’s got enough BO to reek like a dead skunk and, oh god, Sam loves him. Loves him so fucking much.

“Hi,” Sam whispers, feels the numbed tickle of the hair behind Dean’s ear against his upper lip.

“Hey buddy,” Dean replies, mussing up the hair at the back of Sam’s head with one hand. Sam feels the fingers of the other prying at his own where they’ve dug a grip into the neck of Dean’s t-shirt, and he reluctantly loosens his hold, lets Dean pull away from him. His brother lingers close though, and Sam’s sure he stinks like cheap booze and looks the level of hot mess that can only be achieved after four days totally alone in the swelter of summer, but Dean’s smiling down at him anyway. “What’s goin’ on here, huh?”

“Glad you’re back,” Sam says instead of answering.

Dean does pull away then, but his hand rubs again at Sam’s hair in a way that’s more affectionate than irritating before it drops down to Sam’s shoulder. “Me too. We still got one of those pizzas in the freezer?”

Sam nods. It takes a minute for his sluggish brain to realize this means Dean probably didn’t stop to eat on his way back, even though it’s got to be after ten by now. Like he knew Sam was waiting here for him, lost and stupidly empty. Dean can’t know that, but he knows it anyway. Sam should thank him or something, but Dean’s already moving away, saying, “Heat it up for me, would you? Or are you too drunk to use an oven? I’m gonna hit the shower. I smell like a dumpster.”

Sam’s neck twists around as far as it can go to track Dean’s laughter down the hallway, watches Dean’s duffle disappear as he tosses it through the door to the bedroom, watches him reach over his shoulder to tug his shirt up and over his head, watches the flex of his back muscles as he flings that into the room, too. Sam’s too drunk to be properly ashamed or have his mouth go improperly dry with want, so he stays there, just appreciates for the brief moment before his brother vanishes through the bathroom door.

Shaking himself, he gets back to his feet, meanders over to the kitchen. “Not too drunk to oven,” he mutters grumpily, squinting to make the numbers around the dial come in clearly as he sets it to 425. He opens the freezer, gets lost for a minute in the blissful wash of cold air over the body he didn’t realize was overheated until this exact moment, eventually manages to grab the last double pepperoni pizza, the one he’d been saving for when Dean returned because Dean’s ideal pizza has double every kind of meat on it, but one will have to do. He tears open the flimsy cardboard box, almost forgets to pull off the plastic on the inside but does (fortunately, he’d never live that shit down), puts the pizza on a rack, sets the timer with two extra minutes since the oven hasn’t preheated all the way.

“Can totally use the oven, _jerk_ ,” he adds to himself. He doesn’t need Dean in the room to hear the echo of _bitch_ in his ear.

Sam’s sprawled back out on the couch when he hears Dean move from the bathroom to the bedroom, and a minute later out into the living room again. A damp towel hits his face with a thump, and he claws it away. “Hey, fuck you, I made you pizza!”

Dean just snickers, turns away from Sam to head into the kitchen as the timer goes off. Sam loses time to the noise of Dean banging around, one of the most consistent sounds of his inconsistent life. Neither of them are particularly handy in the food prep department, although Dean is significantly better than Sam, who would just as soon dip some raw veggies in ranch dressing as actually try to cook something. But even if Dean was just making mac and cheese from a blue box, the bumps and bangs and swears of his brother in the kitchen were as close to domestic normalcy as Sam had ever gotten.

That would change, though. He’d promised himself, all that would change.

It had to.

Dean’s on the couch with two paper plates piled up with pizza slices before Sam realizes his brother has moved. “Have some,” Dean says, shoving a plate in Sam’s direction. “It’ll help you feel less like shit tomorrow.” Sam glares but grabs a slice anyway, realizes as soon as hot cheese hits his soft palette that he’s _really_ fucking hungry. He must be moaning over it, because Dean’s laughing at him again. “Calm down, kid. It’s a pizza, not a blow job.”

“Har har.”

“I know,” Dean says, smacking his hand down on Sam’s thigh much harder than necessary. “I’m hilarious.” He winks and turns back to his food. The pizza sticks in Sam’s throat.

Dean waits politely until Sam’s devoured three slices (generously saving the other five for his brother, the conquering hero, despite the gaping hole where his stomach used to be). And then Dean says oh-so-casually, “So. Why the drinking?”

The pizza turns treacherously in the whiskey bath in Sam’s stomach and he keeps his eyes on the TV. “Why not?”

“Well, where’d you get the booze?”

“Found it.” Shoved half under the bed where Dad had abandoned it when he left a week ago.

Dean does not require that explanation. “Dad’s gonna pissed.”

“That’ll be a change.” Sam sighs. “When’s he comin’ back, anyway?”

“Day after tomorrow.” The conversation lulls, which is exactly what Sam doesn’t want it to do because that’s no way to keep Dean distracted, but his head’s too heavy to come up with something to say.

“Hey, Sam, come on.” Sam finally turns his head and Dean looks at him imploringly. “What’s going on with you, man? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. I may be a dropout but I’m not an idiot.”

And now, now is the moment. The perfect time, Dad gone, Dean in the post-hunt, victory-high kind of good mood that’s pretty much the happiest he gets, and Sam shorn up by liquid courage. His inhibitions are all but gone, he’s barely even aware of the distant pulse of fear under the swirl of nausea in his gut. He opens his mouth.

“I was bored.”

“Bored? Bored Sam reads a book. Bored Sam builds a better mousetrap. Bored Sam—”

“I missed you, okay?” Not a lie unfortunately. Sam can hear the ring of truth he’s just not capable of keeping out of the words. “I just—just drop it, Dean.”

Miraculously, his brother does. He just smiles, the so small, too soft one that Sam knows is real, that makes him ache all over with the need to keep it on Dean’s face every minute they’re together. He puts his plate on the floor, wraps an arm around Sam’s back and tugs him in close. Sam settles, head resting low on Dean’s chest where he can hear the vital thudding of Dean’s heart beneath his ear, lulling him by the minute into an empty, calm place in his mind, alcohol dragging on his eyelids.

This is everything Sam will miss. It’s not the lumpy mattresses and peeling wallpaper, the late nights and the yelling and the fear-induced race of his heart as it desperately pumps the blood to his limbs that just might save him or save someone else. That’s nothing to lose, but this? Languid warmth, casual affection, the smell of deodorant and aftershave, the press of damply sweaty skin where Dean’s arm is draped around Sam’s neck. This is what Sam’s giving up. He knows why, knows that he needs to find something better, to do something _more_ , but is he really going to find anything that fits him quite like Dean? Why can’t he just have both?

It’s a thought he has as often as he can’t forcibly stop himself from having it, but in his state now, it fills the hollows of his ribs with a weak, whiskey-dredged rage, and he shifts fitfully on the couch, onto his back with his head swimming down into Dean’s lap, trying to keep everything tamped down inside his chest where the booze makes him sluggish. Why couldn’t they just have grown up normal? And if they couldn’t before, why can’t they be now? Why can’t Dean just come with him?

“With you where, Sam?” Dean asks, and Sam misses the words but the sound startles him out of the mucky little mire in his mind.

“Huh?” he responds stupidly. His eyes try to focus on his brother, to take in green eyes and the freckles he used to get away with touching, but Dean’s a smear of pink lips and white teeth above him.

“You said you want me to come with you. Where ya think you’re going, hm?” Dean’s voice is teasing, like it’s just so funny that Sam’s skunk-drunk over here and has got no control over the order of his thoughts. There’s a reason he doesn’t get this way with Dean around, despite his brother’s many attempts to provoke him. There’s probably several reasons but Sam can’t find them right now, can only focus on all the things he’s not supposed to say.

“Everywhere,” he answers. “Need you everywhere.” It’s slurred, sleepy, like all that anger he was holding onto a minute ago just disappeared somewhere into the fog of his brain and left him sagging. The weight on his eyelids is as heavy as the weight on his heart, pulling him down, down, down. His lips are moving but he doesn’t know what they’re saying, not with the call of sleep coming just into reach.

 

***

 

Dean’s made a run to the convenience store and watched morning TV on low volume for nearly two hours before Sam finally peels himself off the patchy leather of the couch and puts his head in his hands.

“Fuck,” he groans, voice morning-after roughened from whiskey and incoherency.

“Hair of the dog, princess?” Dean teases.

Sam glares one bloodshot eye in his direction through a crack in his fingers. “Shut up, asshole.” He lets his head rest on the back of the couch, the mess of his bedhead fluffing out around his face in a way that makes him look like a frazzled bird. “How do you do this all the time? _Why_ do you do this all the time?”

“Some of us know how to handle our liquor, kid.” Sam frowns at the nickname, like he always does lately, but he must be feeling legitimately terrible because he doesn’t say anything. “Come on, I’ll make you some breakfast,” Dean continues.

Sam weakly pats a hand over his stomach. “Ugh, no. No food. Never food again.”

Dean chuckles and pushes himself up out of the armchair, stretching to get out the knot the broken spring likes to stab into his ass every time he’s forced to sit there. “Trust me, baby bro. You go shower, I’ll fix you up.”

Sam’s eyes follow him to the kitchen, and the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck bristle in the way that tells him Sam is still watching him for a long moment even after he sticks his head into the fridge. Sam’s been watching him a lot lately, even more than normal. Dean’s used to getting most of Sam’s attention—it makes sense, because even when Sam is driving him crazy, Sam’s still the only thing he’s got and vice versa—but this time, it’s different. Like Sam is trying to work out who he thinks Dean is, or maybe just trying remember it.

Eventually, Sam gets himself together, moves down the hallway, and Dean hears the shower start running.

It should be unsettling, all the staring, but in some ways, it actually makes Dean feel better. Sam’s been...weird since he graduated in May. Quiet and introspective as always, but he also seems shaken, unmoored. Dean knows how important school was to Sam, that it was something he looked forward to, something that gave him the structure the kid seemed to crave. But Dean had sort of hoped that once it was officially over, Sam would settle in a bit more. He knows why Sam hated the instability during the school year, the constant moving around when he was just trying to finish his education, but now it’s behind them. The family is what they have, and it’s rock solid.

Dean’s been half-thinking about suggesting they go off on their own for a bit, find a couple of hunts just the two of them, maybe take Sam out to see the Pacific Ocean for a few days. Sam barely speaks to Dad at this point, and Dean thinks that what he really needs is a little breathing room. He’s been waiting for the right moment to spring the idea on his brother, thinking about the way he just knows Sam’s face is gonna light up when he tells him.

He finishes getting Sam’s breakfast together—a bacon sandwich and a scrambled egg, just enough grease and protein to take the edge off his hangover—as he hears the water shut off. He draws a big glass of water from the tap and throws in a couple ice cubes, listening to the sounds of Sam moving into the bedroom and then shuffling his way toward the kitchen until he comes into sight, wearing one of Dean’s hand-me-down shirts, boxers, and a mop of damp hair that’s getting long enough to curl fluffy around his ears from where he must’ve rubbed it down with a towel.

“Here,” Dean says, sliding Sam’s plate up onto the high counter that’s all they have as a table in the little apartment.

Sam takes a bite, chews slowly like he’s afraid it’ll come back up before he can even swallow it. “Thanks, Dean.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean replies, turning away to start washing the dishes, “don’t think it means I’m gonna let you off the hook. You were _pretty_ wasted last night.” Sam just grunts around his bacon, so Dean presses on. “I mean, you were acting pretty funny, saying some pretty ridiculous stuff. About missing me, _needing_ me. Do you need me, Sammy?”

“Ha ha,” Sam deadpans, though when Dean glances over his shoulder, Sam is staring down at the plate with his hair in his eyes in the way Dean knows means he’s already embarrassed. Dean smirks to himself as he washes the soap off his hands because this is gonna be _so_ good. A little piece of ammunition he’s too eager to spend, not that he’s gonna let this one go. Ever. This is quality teasing material for life.

“My favorite part, though,” he continues, keeps his voice casual as he turns to look at his brother, pulls the dish towel off his shoulder to dry his hands, “was probably when you said ‘need you _in_ me Dean.’” And no, Sam’s voice wasn’t that high or breathy on the original delivery, but it sounds even more ridiculous when Dean repeats it that way.

Predictably, Sam blushes an immediate and deep red, his mortified silence interrupted by Dean’s belly laugh, although he trails off in confusion when Sam drops the toast he’s holding and rushes for the hallway. Dean’s about to follow when he hears the clink of porcelain and then the immediate sound of Sam throwing up.

 _Poor kid. Poor, stupid kid_.

He turns back to the sink, folds up a little pad of paper towels and wets them down with water as cold as he can get it, before grabbing an empty glass out of the drainer and listening to the toilet flush as he follows his brother into the bathroom.

Sam’s got his arm across the toilet bowl, forehead resting on it as he visibly pants, shoulders jumping under his thin t-shirt with his crude breathing. Dean sets the glass on the counter, squats down next to him and runs a hand up and down his back until he calms a bit.

“You okay?” Dean asks, and Sam shudders, falls to the side so that he’s sitting with his back against the peeling floral wallpaper, eyes closed and head tilted back against the wall so that Dean can watch the catch in his throat when he swallows.

Sam opens his eyes enough to roll them, although he looks like he regrets it.

“Well that’s what happens when you overindulge,” Dean admonishes, shuffling closer on his knees so he can rub at the sweat on Sam’s forehead with the cool paper towel, tilt Sam’s head forward to settle it on the back of his neck. Sam breathes a little sigh that tells Dean he likes it, one corner of his mouth twitching in a weak attempt at a smile.

“Want some water?” Dean asks.

 “You’re a good brother,” Sam says instead of answering.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m awesome,” Dean replies with a snort of laughter, starting to move away so he can grab the glass, but Sam’s hand catches at his elbow. Dean forgets how fast Sam can be, even when he’s feeling like shit warmed over.

“No, Dean.” Sam looks up at him firmly, bangs stuck to his sweaty forehead so that Dean can see into his eyes unobstructed, see how deadly serious Sam is, sights locked like there’s a gun in his hand. “You are. You’re the best brother I could ever ask for. You’ve always tried and I…I just want you to know that I know. I know what you do for me. What I have.” The words come out a little raw, probably just Sam’s sore throat from puking, but Dean doesn’t have that to blame for the lump in his.

“Yeah, kid,” he says softly, puts his hand on the sweat-damp mop of Sam’s hair, lets Sam lean his forehead against Dean’s chest for a long moment as he rubs gentle fingers over that spot behind Sam’s ear that always makes his little brother relax. “Think you’re up for finishing your breakfast now?”

“Sure,” Sam says, and he takes the hand Dean offers him.

 

***

 

Sam’s sprawled face down on the bed, limbs spread wide like a starfish, and he is making a valiant effort not to think about Dean’s back muscles and an even more valiant effort to not fuck his hips down against the mattress. He should be polite if he’s gonna jerk off and do it in the shower, because he shares this bed with his brother sometimes and yeah, that thought is not helping.

Thing is, the fact that his big brother gets his dick wet doesn’t even make the top ten reasons why Sam knows he needs to leave. Those are reserved for the _really_ twisted things, like the time Sam wished on the single birthday candle Dean had stuck into a Hostess cupcake that he’d get so sick that Dad would be forced to let him stop and stay put for a while. Nothing terminal, because that would kill Dean too, just one of the minor cancers maybe, the beatable ones.

But getting away from the complete mess of confused and conflicting feelings Dean spins his brain into is still a perk. This crush, or sick obsession, or whatever it is, is just another kind of pressure spreading and stretching Sam to his limits. Even in the moments he’s supposed to be content, he’s hiding, he’s dissembling, packing a mask of appropriate feeling over the heat that buzzes under his skin when Dean tackles him into the dirt as they’re sparring, when he watches the competent movements of Dean’s knuckles as Dean field strips a gun, when he thinks about those hands stripping _him_ , fantasies infused with too much knowledge because he knows how Dean’s hands feel all over him, holding him together and expressing the kind of casual affection Dean never ever talks about.

Sam knows all of it. That careful violence in Dean’s fingers, the softness of Dean’s hair when it’s air-dried and product-free, the scent of mint toothpaste mixed into the breath Dean exhales onto Sam’s neck when they share a bed. And god, knowing those things, it’s weird for siblings, right? The closeness, the overwhelming need to fucking cuddle up for stability and warmth and safety and security? He tries to be objective about it, but it’s a struggle. He doesn’t want to take the easy way out, blame the way he grew up so that he can just ignore the truth, that he’s just twisted, wrong. Unclean. Sam hasn’t had many friends, and he’s never met siblings who act like they do, but still. Still, these things, the way Sam knows Dean as backwardsupsideout as Dean knows him, the way they _both_ cling on tight, it shouldn’t matter. Shouldn’t make Sam feel this way at all.

But then, how could anyone know the strength and contours of Dean’s heart and _not_ be obsessed? Not be totally, helplessly in love with him? There’s a reason Dean’s broken half the teenaged girl hearts in the continental U.S., and Sam’s just another casualty of that perfect charm. Except Sam’s got it so much worse because those girls get Dean for mere heartbeats, get the mask Dean builds to keep the world just where he wants it, and Sam gets every heroic, imperfect, infuriating, tender moment.

Sam has read about this problem (desperately, extensively), and it’s clear. Unhealthy childhood attachment isn’t inherently _bad_ , but it isn’t normal or good either, and it should, as rapidly and carefully as possible, be replaced with less societally-forbidden attachments to more socially-palatable people. If Sam has any hope to cling to, it’s that California is full of socially-palatable people.

He thinks about what he’d said to Dean last night, blush burning up his cheeks like wildfire when he remembers Dean’s mocking tone relaying it back to him. _Need you in me, Dean_. Thank God his brother wasn’t sick like him, was reasonable enough to think it had been a drunken rambling rather than a drunken confession.

So yeah, space? Is something Sam desperately needs.

Case in point, Sam spent the last hour _not_ watching his brother fixing up the Impala. His cock has been half-hard in his jeans for what feels like forever, just from seeing Dean stretched over the car’s wide hood, the flex of his biceps as he carefully twisted a wrench, the way his undershirt and arms had gotten all sweaty and streaked up with grease. And because Sam is ten kinds of idiot, he’d sat on the front porch for the show, thumbing through meaningless pages so he could stare at Dean over the top of his book.

Sam’s life is a bad porn cliché, and his dick doesn’t even have the sense not to get hard.

So he’d slipped back into the house when Dean started getting supplies together to wash her down. Between the scrubbing and the rinsing and the drying and that special foam stuff Dean uses on the tires, his brother will be out there for at least an hour, which gives Sam ample time to take care of his pesky problem before he’s going to get any more of his brother’s attention today.

Sam remembers this game Dean played when they stayed at Pastor Jim’s last year around Christmas, where the world was ending and the player only had three days to save it. He feels like that now, DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY in bright bold letters in his brain, the hideous, terrifying moon inching ever closer to crush his whole world to dust. Except in the game, time could be reset, whereas Sam’s clock is just moving relentlessly forward, and the only thing that stops his heart beating in time with the seconds clicking by is the way Dean makes his blood race under his skin.

Everything’s got a countdown on it, even this. Because, Sam promises himself yet again as he lifts his hips up off the mattress, uses one hand to flick open the buckle of his belt and work at the button on his jeans, because when he leaves, this is over. No more thinking about his big brother while he’s—he’s leaving this behind, too. He’s going somewhere to find a normal life, and this is something that can’t follow him there.

But for today, well.

Sam finishes getting his pants open, his dick untucked from the waistband of his boxers, reaches around to tug them down at the back and side until they’re below his ass and out of the way. He’d taken his shirt off before he laid down, and he slides one hand up his chest, touch teasing, to pluck a few times at a nipple, waiting for it to get tingly and stiff before rubbing the pad of his thumb over and over it, scratching with the blunt edge of his fingernail every few passes. He’d done this the first time, figured out that he liked it, because Dean had been talking about doing it to a girl he’d picked up at a bar, about pinching her tits until they were sensitive and sore, about teasing them with his fingers and the tip of his tongue. And Sam had thought about it, thinks about it now, how Dean’s mouth would feel on _Sam’s_ chest, those lips that he’s seen frown and smile and laugh dragging over his skin, planting wet, open-mothed kisses over his ribs and up his breastbone, until Dean put his mouth over one of Sam’s nipples, sweetly sensitive from waiting so long for his brother’s touch, sucking and stroking at it with the edge of his teeth.

Sam keeps a groan in his chest as he skates his hand back down over the clenching muscles of his stomach to grip his cock, holding it hot and heavy against his palm for as long as he can stand it before dancing his fingers from base to tip, brushing phantom-light over the head with his thumb before he finally lets himself make a fist around his dick, start up a slow stroking while he keeps his hips still that feels so fucking good he could choke on it.

He keeps it up that way until he’s panting, pillowcase under his cheek spit-damp and clinging with the wet heat of his breath. He’s gotten good at being quiet when he does this, has had to with the way they live all over each other, and even though he’s sure Dean’s still outside or he wouldn’t have started this in the first place, he still swallows every little noise that tries to get past his lips, little hiccups caught down in his chest and sighed into the pillow. It gets more difficult, though, the higher he winds himself up, past the point of teasing now, rocking his thumb over that sweet spot where the crown rolls down to the underside of his cock. It’s getting a little sloppy with precome, frictionless glide of skin on skin that makes his thighs shake and his toes curl.

Would Dean like that, the way his dick gets wet, slicks up like he’s one of the pretty girls Dean takes to bed? Would Dean hold him down like this, press him into the mattress, his face smashed in the pillow so he can barely breathe and his legs spread wide and open, hips hitched up high enough for Dean to reach one of those work-calloused hands around the cradle of Sam’s bones and wrap blunt fingers around Sam’s cock. He’d be pressed up to Sam’s side, smooth, freckled skin all hot and sweaty, sticky where it catches, and he’d have two fingers pushed deep in Sam’s ass, other hand gripping Sam’s dick just firmly enough that it’s sweet relief from the way he’s driving Sam crazy. By this point, Sam would be writhing on Dean’s fingers, their slick slip out of his hole, brushing with deliberate intent over that place inside that makes Sam’s skin spark like the dig of barbed wire into his skin, that place Sam can only get to with ample patience and a sore wrist. But Dean would know Sam, know every inch of him, from the hot achy clench at the back of Sam’s throat to the fever heat he’s stroking at so expertly in the dark insides of Sam’s body. It would be so good that Sam would want to cry with the need to get Dean’s fat cock in that space, to pull his big brother in and down into him until they become one—blood, body, mind, soul.

But Dean would deny him, ignore the shaky little pleas that fall past Sam’s lips, would stuff a third finger in where he’s scissored Sam open more than enough already, just to prove his point. That Sam is his, completely, and completely at his mercy. That he knows what Sam likes, that he knows how Sam values patience even when his body is screaming at him to _go go come now_. Sam would whimper at the stretch of it, at the catch of Dean’s ring against his hole every time Dean slides in deep, and Dean would clench the fingers of his other hand tight around the base of Sam’s cock to keep him from falling apart because Dean would know, too, that Sam always, always wants to come with Dean balls deep inside him, with Dean connected to him completely.

And then Dean would hook his fingers all the way in, flex them, the rhythm of it pushing Sam that much closer to madness, as he kisses his way up the slippery line of Sam’s vertebrae, until he could growl “You all ready for me, sweetheart?” so close to Sam’s ear that it makes the fine hairs there vibrate, makes all of him vibrate with want. Sam would sob out “ _Yes_ ” in a voice that’s cracked and open and needy, and Dean takes the hand off his cock and slides it up against Sam’s belly and pulls Sam up so they’re pressed tight together where their bodies arch.

“Gonna roll over for me, yeah?” he’d say, more command than question, and Sam would be moving before he finished speaking, stretching onto his back so that Dean’s hovering over him. He’d pull his legs up to his chest, hands on his knees to splay them high and wide like an invitation that Dean takes willingly, pressing in close enough that their chests brush in the gap between Sam’s legs every time they inhale. Dean puts one of those gorgeous hands on the side of Sam’s face, fingertips touching at his temple and his jaw and where a hint of wetness lingers at the corner of Sam’s eye, and the other one appears again at Sam’s hole, thumb and forefinger slipping in and prying him wide and then _oh_ _yes_ , Dean’s cock is there, hot and hard and insistently pressing for entrance, the extra flesh at the head giving and giving until Sam’s hole finally gives instead, lets his brother in where he belongs. Dean takes his time, and Sam can see the strain around his eyes where they’re staring straight into Sam’s, the feeling so overwhelming that Dean’s brain is struggling to process it, until he’s rocked all the way in, Sam’s ass pressed to him so tight Sam can feel the shifting of Dean’s pelvic bones as his big brother settles.

They stay that way for a moment, locked together, Sam’s body groaning for more and Dean’s breath in Sam’s mouth, and then his brother’s cock drags back out, pressing and stretching more fully than Dean’s fingers possibly can, every cell of Sam’s body lit up with the contact.

“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean pants, pushing back in. “Fuck, so tight for me, so perfect, you don’t even—.” He chokes on his own spit and sticks his tongue into Sam’s mouth and then they’re both gone, Dean abandoning any semblance of patience and fucking Sam in earnest, punching noises right up from Sam’s diaphragm every time he shoves back in deep.

“Dean,” Sam breathes, right into his brother’s mouth, and Dean licks over Sam’s lips, digs his teeth into the flesh of Sam’s cheek and growls deep in his chest. Sam’s close, so close, the precipice rushing up like a tidal wave in his chest, and he buries his face against the hot, sweaty skin of Dean’s neck, buries himself in the smell of Dean’s aftershave there, that smell that hasn’t changed since Dean started shaving when Sam was ten, and he comes so hard the space inside his chest melts with the heat of it, strong nuclear force of his atoms torn asunder, displaced by the energy crashing up and over his body.

Sam breathes back to existence on the bed, grows aware of the damp sheet under his back, the come and sweat gradually cooling on his chest. He swallows thickly on a sore throat, heart kicking up a little at the realization that he probably wasn’t as quiet as he tried to be. Thank God Dean’s outside. Weakly, he moves his wrist, the one he’d dabbed Dean’s aftershave on before he got started, away from his nose and mouth so he can inhale oxygen into the very bottom of his lungs and hold it there like a stone.

Contentment settles into his bones the way a deep, empty ache settles into the dark muscle spaces around his heart. He stretches all the way down to his toes and tries to ignore it.

 

***

 

Dean knows Sam’s probably not looking forward to Dad coming back later today, and Dean knows he doesn’t really want to deal with Sam becoming sullen and withdrawn again as the hours tick closer to Dad’s arrival. His little brother’s been so hot and cold over the last few months, and it’s been such a relief the last couple of days to have the friendly, if a bit clingy, version of his brother back. They’d spent last night on the couch with Chinese food and cold beer and terrible pre-season Monday Night Football, and yeah maybe Dean had thought a few times about heading out to a bar at some point in the evening, but then Sam would crack one of his dumb jokes or recite the words of some terrible TV commercial after Dean muted it, not stopping even with Dean’s hand clamped over his mouth, and Dean just hadn’t felt like putting in the effort. Sam drove him batfuckingcrazy sometimes, made Dean feel like he was running around headless trying to keep Sam happy, but he was also the easiest thing in Dean’s life in so many ways.

Getting this little shack of a house to leave a sick Sam in from someone-or-other that Dad helped a couple years back is nice, too; even Dean has to admit he’s getting a little sick of the motel hopping they’ve been doing non-stop for three months. The family used to spend Sam’s summers living like this, but when Sam was in school, there was always a reason to settle down and have a home base on the horizon, even if it was just for a couple months at a time. Now they’re barely a step above drifters, and having a vaguely familiar bed to come home to is a fond memory. Dad doesn’t even seem to believe in downtime between jobs at the moment, keeps them moving constantly, restlessly.

At some point they’ll get so low on money with neither Dean nor Sam able to hold down even handyman work, much less an hourly job, that they’ll be forced to stop temporarily. Dean knows, intimately, just how tight Dad is willing to pull those purse strings, just how little he thinks a person should be able to get by on. And Dean also knows Sam’s somehow _still_ growing.

Dean has always, will always, put his foot down at letting Sam starve.

But for now, he puts it out of his mind. After all, Dean’s got a credit card with definitely not his name on it, and a little brother to distract.

They’re at the table, remains of their gas station breakfast shoved off to the side and the entire Winchester collection of Things with Blades spread out in front of them for whetting and polishing. Sam’s been a little quiet, letting Dean regale him with a story from the bar he and Dad had visited during their short hunt, of two chicks in a full-on brawl over one skeevy, unfaithful guy, but he’s smiling and laughing in all the right places, so Dean figures it’s a good time to ask. “Hey, wanna catch a movie this afternoon? There’s that one with Jackie Chan. Looks funny.”

Sam gives him another one of those long, steady looks he’s been using so often lately, except now he looks a little nauseous and Dean wonders if the smell of the polish is getting to him.  ”I need to tell you something.”

“Yeah, what is—?” Dean starts to ask, but then the phone hanging on the wall of the kitchen rings shrilly, and he pushes away from the table to answer it immediately because only one person should be using that number right now.

He picks up the handset, brings it to his ear. “Sir?”

“I’m just calling to check in.” Dad sounds tired, rough around the edges. Dean doesn’t know what he’s been doing the last few days, knows better than to ask. “Should be back around seventeen-hundred. You two doing your chores?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, I’ll see you then. We’re leaving first thing tomorrow so don’t leave it to the last minute.”

“Yes, sir.” There’s a clang and then the phone cuts to a dial tone in Dean’s ear.

He heads back to the table, doesn’t say anything about who was on the phone. He can tell from the little line dug in between Sam’s eyebrows that his brother knows what the call was about anyway. “What were you gonna say?” Dean asks instead.

Sam opens his mouth, closes it again. He frowns down at the tabletop for a quiet moment, but then looks up. “I—I forgot, I guess.” He licks his lips and sighs. “So, movie?”

Dean nods. “Sure. We can go once we finish up.”

Sam just smirks faintly at him. “Bet I can finish more than you,” he taunts, and then it’s a race that Sam handily wins except Dean doesn’t care because it gets them out the door faster.

They take Baby to the closest multiplex Dean remembers passing, in some mecca shopping center twenty minutes down the freeway. The air is sticky with humidity and hovering somewhere in the high 90s, hot enough that even with the air blowing through the open windows, Dean’s in short sleeves that leave his too pale skin exposed to the fierce sunlight. He keeps his left arm tucked up against the door to try to protect it and frowns behind his sunglasses, sticks his tongue out when Sam teases him.

The movie theatre is walk-in refrigerator cold, air conditioning on blast to beat the summer heat and it all feels so fucking normal as Dean walks inside with his brother that he’s not sure this isn’t an out of body experience. These moments, untainted by even the hurry of the next hunt already picked out and waiting somewhere across the country, are so rare for them, especially lately. Dean never realized how much things would change once Sam finally graduated, and he’s still not sure how to handle all of it.

Sam buys the biggest popcorn they sell and two giant sodas with twenty dollars he’s got tucked away in his wallet (“I helped Ms. Downstairs carry in her groceries and change a few lightbulbs and she wouldn’t take no for an answer”), and Dean pulls out his card again to pick up some Buncha Crunch that he claims is for himself but knows will mostly go down Sam’s gullet because the kid loves the stuff. He swaps the box to Sam for the popcorn, and drowns it in fake butter from the little silver pump, much to Sam’s dismay.

It’s a Tuesday matinee, so they’re alone in the theatre except for a couple of kids who wander in during the last preview and sit ten rows ahead of them, far enough away that Dean doesn’t even have to worry about how loud Sam talks during action scenes, like Dean’s not gonna hear him over the music when Dean could hear Sam’s voice whispering from a mile away.

The movie’s good—not as good as the first one, but funny, and Dean lets it distract him, forgets about Dad and money and leaving again and everything else, just laughs at tasteless jokes that make Sam roll his eyes and plays keepaway with the popcorn bucket until Sam manages to tug it triumphantly into his own lap. Dean reaches in, roots his hand deep into the bucket so that it gets a good coating of grease, and then grabs an innocent handful of crunchy goodness and shoves it all into his mouth at once. Sam makes a face like he’s a little nauseated, but he turns back to the movie as Dean reaches back in for more. Except this time, Dean bumps slimy, salty fingers up against Sam’s where they’re in the bucket too, uses the advantage of surprise to smear a faux-buttery thumb over the inside of Sam’s wrist and almost halfway to Sam’s elbow before Sam manages to tug his hand away with a noise of disgust.

“Gross, dude!” he hisses, and Dean snickers under his breath. His laughter cuts off abruptly, though, when he feels Sam’s greasy fingers on his own neck.

“Fucker!”

“You started it,” Sam says. Even in the dark theatre, Dean can tell how smug his brother looks. He’s tempted to retaliate, but he has a feeling it’ll just end with all that precious popcorn on the floor, so he settles for glaring.

“I hate you,” he teases.

Something flickers over Sam’s face, an expression here and gone too quickly for Dean to identify it in the dark, but then Sam’s chuckling and whispering back, “Promises, promises,” and shoving his elbow over the armrest to dig into Dean’s ribs. Dean shoves back, and the popcorn bucket wobbles precariously as they go at it, shoulders and elbows and knees colliding and grinding, until Dean swoops up the paperboard carton with an admonishing “Careful!” and settles it into his own lap. Sam sticks out his tongue, purple in the blue light of the screen, but settles against the headrest to watch the movie.

Dean smiles at him for a long minute before he turns back to the screen too. Is it really so bad that this is what Dean wants in life, all he needs to be happy? His dad close, his brother closer, a girl every now and again to fill in the gaps (he is 22, after all). He knows Sam dreams about settling down some day, and Dean doesn’t begrudge him for it, would be proud of the fact that Sam managed to grow up smart and normal and bag a hot woman, but Dean? He could live, just like this, forever.

Dean looks over a few minutes later to make a comment about Jackie Chan’s ridiculous level of badassery, but it sticks in his voicebox when he catches a shine on Sam’s cheeks that can only be tears. Sam doesn’t even seem to notice them, lost in a faraway stare at the screen, and Dean wants to make fun of him, because seriously, is he crying over Carter thinking Lee was dead for all of four minutes? But something stops him, tells him not to mess with it right now, this extra piece in the puzzle of how strange Sam’s been acting lately. Sometimes he feels like he’s never studied Sam more closely, but he’s never been more confused. His little brother’s just been unbalanced lately. Not crazy, but so easy to throw off, to tip over the edge into melancholy or forced joy, and while Dean usually has all the elegance and awareness of a rhinoceros when dealing with that sort of situation, with Sam he’s more aware of it, less willing to tip the balance as long as Sam’s not straight up pissing him off.

He turns back to the screen, waits a long moment before patting a comforting hand down on Sam’s knee and leaving it there. Sam ducks his head way down to the side, trying to wipe his cheeks sneakily, and Dean pretends not to notice. A moment later, Sam puts his hand on his own leg so that his fingers are just barely brushing at the edge of Dean’s, like they’re little kids again and he wants to hold Dean’s hand but he’s old enough to know better than to even try it.

Dean doesn’t move his hand away, pretends not to notice that either.

 

***

 

Sam still smells movie popcorn in his hair, but he hasn’t had time, won’t have time, to shower. Dad had pulled up less than an hour after they’d made it back from the theatre, and then it had been unpacking and gun cleaning and a trip to the laundromat before an early dinner. But it’s going on 6:30 now, and Sam’s bus ticket says 9:05 PM. The bus station is no few miles away, and Sam’s trying to keep positive but he knows he needs to give himself plenty of time, just in case he has to walk there.

He just has to move first.

It would be one thing if Dad hadn’t made it home in time, had just been him and Dean and their last dinner on the road like this together and Sam would have found the words, somehow, to break it to him gently, but in reality Sam knows it’s better this way. He’d been stressing about it every minute until Dad kicked at the door to be let in, about missing his bus because he couldn’t leave Dean here alone to deal with telling Dad what Sam couldn’t.

He’s already packed, but he lets himself look around the room one more time, make sure he’s not leaving behind anything he can’t live without. Anything he can put in a suitcase, anyway. And then he stands up, heart thudding heavy in his chest and tears stinging at the back of his eyes as he gulps in deep breath after deep breath, trying to calm himself because this is it. Countdown clock in the final seconds. No more time to waste.

No more time to pretend.

He stops at the bathroom on his way down the hall, grabs his toothbrush and their tube of toothpaste (sorry, Dean, but he’s not sure when he’ll get the chance to buy another one and his brother can share with Dad). He catches his own eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot and wide with panic in the mirror, and tugs open the medicine cabinet quickly to erase the image before he has to kneel over the toilet and throw up. Deodorant, shaving cream, a razor go into his luggage. He looks into the cabinet again, hesitates, and then his fingers are closing around the plastic bottle of Dean’s aftershave, shoving it into the end pocket of his duffle before he can talk himself out of it.

He steps back out onto death row, readjusts the bag more securely on his shoulder, clutches his ticket and his acceptance letter tight in his hand, and heads down the hall to his execution.

***

He knows Dean’s followed him, hears the screen door bang and footsteps on the pavement behind him. He slows his steps for the inevitable confrontation, knows he’s not getting away without it, and this is something he can let his brother have.

“Sammy,” Dean says, out of breath, and Sam turns to face him, lets the duffle swing down off his shoulder and onto the ground. There’s more emotion on Dean’s face than Sam’s seen in maybe ever, hurt and bewilderment and disbelief, those big green eyes wide and a little wet, and something stirs unhappily in Sam’s chest at the knowledge that he caused it, that he _hurt_ Dean deliberately, even if he’s doing it for the better.

“You can’t just—“ and he doesn’t have to finish the thought for Sam to know what he means. _You can’t just leave me._

“I’m sorry, Dean. I am so, _so_ sorry, but there’s nothing I can say that can make you understand. I’m not asking you to understand.” He watches his brother’s face collapse by millimeters. “But I meant when I said I need to do this. I have reasons and I can’t—it’s just, it’s for the best, okay? It’s better this way—”

“It’s not,” Dean cuts in, a flash of hot anger surging out to cover up all those other messy feelings, brick them in behind something sharp and dangerous. “How can you even _say_ that?” He takes a big step forward and hooks his fingers into the front of Sam’s shirt before Sam can back away. “We’ve always—goddamn it, Sam! I’ve done _everything_ for you.”

It’s not true, because while it’s unquestionable that Dean did a lot, _gave_ a lot for Sam, he did a lot for Dad, too. The only one he doesn’t do anything for is himself. But it’s not fair to point it out now, regardless. Sam knows what he’s doing, taking the already scrambled mess of their lives and exploding a bomb right in the middle of it. He’s the faulting party here, and he’ll take everything Dean dishes out, let it burrow deep under his skin and down into his soul to remind him that every choice has consequences. That taking one thing means giving something else up.

But Sam can give his brother something back, too. Something to ease the hurt, something Dean can use to answer the question why. It won’t be the truth really, because this isn’t the reason he’s leaving, but it’s the one reason he can give his brother, the one thing so unforgivable that Dean might not even miss him. Sam’s not trying to defend himself anymore. He’s just trying to get out.

He puts his hands on his brother’s face, feels the heat of the angry flush on his brother’s skin under his palms, and he leans in, not up or down because they’re just the same height now, and he kisses his brother’s mouth. Presses his lips into the spit-damp pout of Dean’s just enough that he can feel them give under the pressure. He doesn’t ghost away from the kiss, because he wants Dean to know he means it, but he doesn’t linger either, because so far tonight he’s only gotten hit once and he doesn’t want to add to the tally. It lasts a few seconds, and Sam knows he will remember them for the rest of his life.

He opens his eyes as he draws back, takes just a second to nuzzle his nose into Dean’s because he should never have started, never have taken this for himself. Doesn’t know how he’s going to move on now.

Maybe he wasn’t ever supposed to.

“I love you, Dean,” he says, quiet. “Call me if you can ever stand to talk to me again.” He takes a step away that hurts worse than he ever imagined, bends at the knees to pick up his duffle. Dean says nothing, speechless as he watches Sam turn away and start back down the road.

Sam keeps his eyes on the white line beneath his feet, feels the throb in his jaw, doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> For the ever-patient [sammehsayum](http://sammehsayum.tumblr.com/), who won my giveaway months ago and has been waiting ever since. To fill the prompt weecest and "the worst angst that has ever been felt, but not so that it ends with a bad taste in your mouth." I hope I succeeded.
> 
> The biggest thanks to [sweet-cherry-dean](http://sweet-cherry-dean.tumblr.com/), for encouraging me with kind words when I was doubting myself, and to [trekkiepirate](http://trekkiepirate.tumblr.com/), for the last minute beta services.


End file.
